1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for recognizing an object. More specifically, the present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for recognizing a target object image from images.
2. Description of the Background Art
Object recognition is one of the most essential tasks of computer vision. For instance, landmark detection is very important for robot navigation, and the stability of various tracking systems highly depends on the detection of targets. Recognition and tracking of human movement using images have been studied vigorously in these days, and stable object detection is essential in this field. In most of the conventionally proposed human tracking systems, however, the detecting process has been simplified by employing strong assumptions on the environment, so as to reduce cost of calculation. One of the most popular methods is moving area extraction based on background subtraction (interframe subtraction). However, for the background subtraction, both the camera position and the background must be fixed. Further, motions of objects other than the target of tracking cannot be allowed. This causes a serious problem when the system is expanded for use in more general situations.
Another method of recognition utilizes color information. For example, skin regions have nearly uniform colors, and therefore some have used color information to extract face and/or hand regions. However, color information is not robust against changes in the environment including illumination, and moreover, area detection can be difficult when the image size is small.